'I haven't slept like that for years,' he said enthusiastically. Helena
smiled gently on him. The charm of his handsome, healthy zest came over
her. She liked his naked throat and his shirt-breast, which suggested
the breast of the man beneath it. She was extraordinarily happy, with
him so bright. The dark-faced pansies, in a little crowd, seemed gaily
winking a golden eye at her.
After breakfast, while Siegmund dressed, she went down to the sea. She
dwelled, as she passed, on all tiny, pretty things--on the barbaric
yellow ragwort, and pink convolvuli; on all the twinkling of flowers,
and dew, and snail-tracks drying in the sun. Her walk was one long
lingering. More than the spaces, she loved the nooks, and fancy more
than imagination.
She wanted to see just as she pleased, without any of humanity's
previous vision for spectacles. So she knew hardly any flower's name,
nor perceived any of the relationships, nor cared a jot about an
adaptation or a modification. It pleased her that the lowest browny
florets of the clover hung down; she cared no more. She clothed
everything in fancy.
'That yellow flower hadn't time to be brushed and combed by the fairies
before dawn came. It is tousled ...' so she thought to herself. The pink
convolvuli were fairy horns or telephones from the day fairies to the
night fairies. The rippling sunlight on the sea was the Rhine maidens
spreading their bright hair to the sun. That was her favourite form of
thinking. The value of all things was in the fancy they evoked. She did
not care for people; they were vulgar, ugly, and stupid, as a rule.
Her sense of satisfaction was complete as she leaned on the low
sea-wall, spreading her fingers to warm on the stones, concocting magic
out of the simple morning. She watched the indolent chasing of wavelets
round the small rocks, the curling of the deep blue water round the
water-shadowed reefs.
'This is very good,' she said to herself. 'This is eternally cool, and
clean and fresh. It could never be spoiled by satiety.' She tried to wash herself with the white and blue morning, to clear away
the soiling of the last night's passion.
The sea played by itself, intent on its own game. Its aloofness, its
self-sufficiency, are its great charm. The sea does not give and take,
like the land and the sky. It has no traffic with the world. It spends
its passion upon itself. Helena was something like the sea,
self-sufficient and careless of the rest.
Siegmund came bareheaded, his black hair ruffling to the wind, his eyes
shining warmer than the sea-like cornflowers rather, his limbs swinging
backward and forward like the water. Together they leaned on the wall,
warming the four white hands upon the grey bleached stone as they
watched the water playing.